Saturday morning it was up early for the hour and a half drive north to Ocala, home of newred hobbies. Newred has been a successful hobby shop and track for over ten years, going back to 2004 when they held the ROAR Regional 4 race. Some of the people that raced back in ’04 still attend this track today showing how alive RC racing is in Florida.

Practice early Saturday morning was ok with getting the TLR 22 2.0 ready for the high grip surface of newred. This required a bit of work taking steering out of the car hoping not to over rotate (Setup sheet coming soon). I still needed to make tires for the TLR 22-4 so I wasn’t able to get a practice run in. One of the main things I’ve found from racing at newred at club races, and today was getting tire sauce on my JConcepts gold tires early to dry fully before hitting the track.

Qualifying went well in round one taking second in 2wd and a TQ in 4wd. The changes I made during practice on the 22 2.0 were paying off and I just needed one more run to get the hang of it. Round 2 and after a re-sort, we would have the top drivers in both classes in final heats. I was able to edge out PW in 2wd for the overall TQ and in 4wd over teammate Chris Viesins.

Mains for the 10 year anniversary race would be triple A mains. From previous races at newred, mains can be on the chaotic side and you’re really never out until everything is said and done. A1 in 2wd would see a race between myself and PW. With small mistakes by both drivers during the 5 minute main, I was able to take the win. A1 and A2 in 4wd saw close races in both mains with Chris and a 1-2 finish for TLR in this class. A2 of 2wd would be the deciding race of 2wd and of the whole Saturday as tensions were high. This would be one of the normal mains at newred with things getting crazy. I made a mistake a couple of laps in moving me back to fifth or so. I made my way back up to fourth and sight of the lead with a minute to go. With the crazy speeds and high grip, running into someone on ACCIDENT was a common occurrence. This happened with me and some other drivers also in this main. Both incidents are just what happen at newred and tracks everywhere, but believing these incidents happen on purpose needs to stop! We all want to win and do good, but racing at the level we are comes with racing incidents. I’ve have had these happen to me over the 25+ years of racing. At the end of all the craziness, I stayed in it until the end to bring home the win with the TLR 22 2.0.

Great job by the newred hobbies team and congratulations on a great race and your success over the past ten years.